"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

March 31, 2014

Pleading ignorance: a right-wing tradition

The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, in the words of the NY Times, that ...

ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct ... [while] oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth ... [as o]rganic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civilization began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming.

And the worst is yet to come ...

[risking] death or injury on a widespread scale, probable damage to public health, displacement of people and potential mass migrations.

But then there's global-warming denialism, topped only by denial of global-warming denialism: "Now we are at the point where there is so much information, so much evidence, that we can no longer plead ignorance,” said the World Meteorological Organization's secretary general, who has quite obviously never encountered James Inhofe & Associates.

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Pleading ignorance: a right-wing tradition

The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, in the words of the NY Times, that ...

ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct ... [while] oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth ... [as o]rganic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civilization began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming.

And the worst is yet to come ...

[risking] death or injury on a widespread scale, probable damage to public health, displacement of people and potential mass migrations.

But then there's global-warming denialism, topped only by denial of global-warming denialism: "Now we are at the point where there is so much information, so much evidence, that we can no longer plead ignorance,” said the World Meteorological Organization's secretary general, who has quite obviously never encountered James Inhofe & Associates.